Rapid BIM Implementation – A Qualitative Study About the Project eGHA by Basler & Hofmann
Abstract
What is known? Digital technologies develop at a rapid pace (Richard Baldwin 2018). The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is no exception. Systemic innovation is needed to adopt these technologies. However, the construction industry structure resists the adoption of systemic innovations (Hall et al. 2018). Problems are the crossing of professional and trade specializations, the breaking of industry standards, and the redefinitions of how existing modules are produced and fit together (Hall et al. 2018).
Building information modeling (BIM) is one of these digital technologies. It will affect the AEC industry massively. Although the concept of BIM has been around for decades, the AEC industry struggles a lot with implementing it. The first model-supported projects had been successfully implemented. However, these were mostly low-level BIM projects. The potential of BIM was therefore not nearly exhausted with what would have been possible at the time of realization.
What is unknown? Little is known about how BIM can be implemented fast and on a high level. There is a gap between the rapid pace of how digital technologies develop and how slowly the AEC adopts innovation. Specifically for BIM, this means that the AEC industry does not know enough about how they can implement BIM fast and on a high level. This is also largely due to a lack of systemic innovation because of the high fragmentation of the AEC industry.
How and why should the gap be filled? Basler & Hofmann (B&H), a large engineering company in Switzerland, tried to implement BIM on a very high level with a specific project. The project is the eGHA, an extension of one of their office buildings in Esslingen. Applications like BIM to the field, virtual reality, and a model-based submission were used. Although, they had very little knowledge about it and almost no experience with BIM at all.
Through the uniqueness of the project and the very high level of BIM implementation made the eGHA a great opportunity to learn from the experience of the different actors, so that future projects can be realized with an even higher level of BIM and at an even faster pace. With the essence of knowledge gathered by these different actors, the AEC can learn what should be considered to implement BIM faster and on a higher level.
What was done? In a qualitative study and with a constructivist grounded theory approach, the essence of the experience and knowledge was gathered based on several interviews, which took place in two phases. In the first phase, the actors were interviewed during the shell construction in the middle of the project. After these interviews, important statements or statements, which were important for some interviewees, were derived. In the second interview phase, which was around one year later and some months after the project end, several actors were interviewed again and the derived statements were presented to them to learn how the perspectives on differing or whether there are similarities. The interviews were coded and the essence was summarized of what we can learn from the eGHA about how to implement BIM faster and on a higher level for future projects.
What results were found? The eGHA was not simply a project that ran smoothly. Certain processes worked well, but usually only thanks to the efforts of many. Certain ideas did not work out at all and were left by the wayside at a certain time, but others could be realized even more successfully than expected. However, the eGHA proofed that it is possible to implement BIM fast and on a high level.
However, all in all, with the experience gathered by the different actors today, BIM could be implemented way more successful. What it takes therefore and what could be drawn from the interviews is summarized in the paragraphs in the result sections. At the end of every paragraph, the key findings for future projects are presented.
How do the results fill the gap? The results show many points, which should be considered to implement BIM fast and on a high level. Thereby, they provide important information on what matters for rapid BIM implementation. In any case, they are not final and refer closely to the experiences of one single project. It would have been hardly possible to find a more comparable project in Switzerland at the time since the project was very unique and also groundbreaking. All in all, the results form an early rapid BIM implementation theory, which needs further review and refinement through new knowledge gained from other projects.
What does this mean for us going forward? There is still more research needed to provide the AEC industry with better knowledge of how to overcome difficulties with BIM implementation. Conducting interviews with different actors of a groundbreaking project has turned out to be a very effective way to learn about these difficulties and to learn what might be possible solutions for them. Furthermore, it can be assumed that in the immediate future, more such groundbreaking projects will be realized. They will offer a great opportunity for further research.